Companies need to make sure that their processes are all under control. This becomes difficult because of the large volume of data they have at hand. This means they need all the assistance they can get to make sustainable and profitable decisions for their organization. Once they use modern and professional BI tools, companies can effectively manage all challenges without a lot of IT involvement.
What are BI Tools?
Companies use Business Intelligence tools, which are types of software to collect, process, analyze, and visualize all the data from the past current and future climates and generate business insights along with creating interactive reports, and simplify the decision-making processes.
These tools come with features like data visualization, visual analytics, interactive dashboarding, KPI scorecards and more, along with the enabling of users to utilize all their automated reporting features as well as the predictive analytics functions.
Benefits of Business Intelligence Tools
Combining all relevant data
Organizations normally collect data from a number of different portals as well as ERPs, CRMs, databases, APIs, and more, which requires a high level of data intelligence. This will help in understanding all the gathered information better. Companies can centralize the sources and provide a single point of view, making identifying issues and trends, and taking action to combat them easier.
Unlock data access
All employees will be able to explore the available data on their own with BI tools which means they won’t have to rely on the IT department as much. This will save the company’s time and resources as well, and the IT team will be able to focus on other important tasks.
Users can utilize the predictions
Predictive analytics comes with the integration of forecast engines for the company, enabling them to generate insights for any and all possible future scenarios. This way businesses can adjust their current strategies and improve their results. Intelligent data alerts can help when business climate changes as well by safeguarding the anomalies that could happen by discovering new trends and patterns in the market to quicken the reaction process.
Eliminate manual tasks
Modern Business Intelligence software facilitates the automation of all manual processes which were usually done on Excel sheets. It is also possible to automate the reporting process with the help of specified time intervals and observe the results. It is also easy to create a powerful interactive dashboard enabling employees to interact with their screen directly.
Reduce business costs
Business Intelligence software enables companies to plan faster improve the total analysis as well as reporting processes. These benefits help companies reduce costs and increase revenues.
Customer service is 24/7
Various organizations require various needs and the Software-as-a-Service model offered by these tools will provide a full SaaS BI experience, with all the data hosted in a secure online environment. According to your needs, the software can scale or de-scale, thus, adjusting to the specific needs of a company. Since the data is stored on a cloud, you have non-stop access to the software, where you can fully explore various self-service analytics features no matter if you’re a manager, data scientist, analyst or consultant.
These business intelligence benefits are focused both on small companies and large enterprises. If you need to control your data and know what’s going on in your company, BI is the way to do so. To help you on the way, we have created a business intelligence tools list that not only will ensure your data management and discovery become intuitive and easy to use, but also stay secured and guarantee a higher level of productivity, and, consequently, increased profits.
The Best BI Tools in the Market
Datapine
Datapine lets users connect data from different sources and then helps in analyzing using the software’s advanced analytics features which are also predictive. Using this analysis, users can create powerful business dashboards as well as make customized reports or even incorporate intelligent alerts that will give them notifications in case of an anomaly. Datapine is a powerful solution for all types of businesses of varying sizes. It can be implemented and customized for various industries as well as over different platforms, regardless of the size.
The features of Datapine are for both average users as well as data analysts. Analysts can create their own queries in a visually intuitive manner with the software’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and ensure they make powerful charts and dashboards using effective visual analytics.
Key Features:
Intuitive drag-and-drop interface: All users have to do is drag KPIs into the interface to transform charts and graphs into a professional dashboard.
- Easy-to-use predictive analytics: Predictive analysis is based on a forecast engine. This simplifies KPIs as well as determines the number of data points be forecasted. Users can specify the previous data points to make calculations and define the model quality
- Interactive dashboard features: Users can analyze the dashboard with the options available at hand such as drill-downs, widget linking, among others to improve the data discovery process
- Options for multiple reporting: With Datapine users can create standard and customized reports. These can be shared via URL so viewers can access the files or even generate an automated email report on regular time intervals
- AI-based smart insights and alarms: These alarms are to alert users in case of a business anomaly as well as to generate multiple types of insights such as trends, value drivers, what-if scenarios, evaluate the growth, among others
SAS Business Intelligence
SAS Business Intelligence comes with products and technologies for the following:
- Data scientists
- Text analysts
- Data engineers
- Forecasting analysts
- Econometricians
- Optimization modellers
SAS Business Intelligence builds and expands its products each year. Since the software has been continued since the 70s, it has a high level of trust and user satisfaction.
Key Features:
- 5 main subjects: SAS comes with products focusing on visual data exploration as well as easy analytics. The tools come with interactive reporting and dashboards, collaboration, and they also have mobile apps
- Machine learning supported data exploration: The automated analysis is supported by machine learning. This analysis is compiled in interactive visualizations created to answer business questions
- Text analytics capabilities: Text analytics helps users gain insights from all available data from text like social media as well as location analytics
- Reports and dashboards: SAS business intelligence software has dynamic visuals in the form of interactive reports and dashboards and users get access on mobile and tablet devices as well
- Integration with applications: SAS can be integrated with Microsoft Office applications with its Office Analytics solution. This enables users to view their results directly in the MS Office Suite
Clear Analytics
Clear Analytics consolidates data from all existing internal systems as well as other platforms such as the cloud, accounting and CRM. It also lets the users drag-and-drop data into Excel. It works alongside the Microsoft Power BI and uses Power Query and Power Pivot. This is to clean and model the various types of datasets.
Key Features:
- Reports delivered to Power Business Intelligence: Clear Analytics comes with self-service ad hoc reporting. It delivers it directly to Power BI. This way non-technical users can explore the data which is stored in databases using a drag-and-drop interface as well as dynamic query designer
- Connected with Excel: The Excel connection allows the specification of end-users’ viewing rights. This is made based on a user or role level. Users can freely manipulate formulas, be it basic or advanced analysis
- Sharing on mobile devices: Power BI tools like Power Maps, Pivot and Desktop can be put to use tp share insights into mobile devices
- A full audit trail: Clear Analytics comes with a full audit trail. This enables users to know the exact place the data came from, the filters which were used, the ones in charge of running the report, as well as when the data was extracted
- Semantic layering to fetch data elements: Clear Analytics has a semantic layer which enables users to fetch data elements and then help with the organization using modelling, visualizing, and transforming data so that users can generate needed insights
SAP BusinessObjects
SAP BusinessObjects is designed to create comprehensive reports, analysis, and in-depth data visualization. The tool comes with MS Office integrations with Excel and PowerPoint. This way users can create live presentations as well as hybrid analytics which can be connected to their on-premise and also other cloud SAP systems. The main focus is on business categories like CRM to improve customer experience, ERP for its digital core, HR for their people engagement, enhancing the digital supply chain, and more.
Key Features:
- A BI enterprise reporting system: Ad hoc queries are taken into consideration as well for their reporting and analysis. The tool comes with a complex BI enterprise reporting system which is specifically designed to guide complete company strategy
- Self-service, role-based dashboards: The main focus of the analytics applications and data visualization are its self-service capabilities. It is possible to build one’s own role-based dashboards as well as other applications to be able to assess risks and more
- Cross-enterprise sharing: A cross-enterprise sharing functionality can be created to enable communication of findings to other stakeholders, partners and more
- Connection with SAP Warehouse and HANA: SAP BusinessObjects comes with multidimensional data analysis where users can easily filter and manipulate data. All of this comes with real-time analytics once SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) or SAP HANA is connected
- Integration with Office: It is easy to analyze large data when using Microsoft Excel with SAP as well as embed analytics in PowerPoint due to its integrations
DOMO
Domo is made of multiple systems starting with a data connection and ending with the extension of data using custom made pre-built applications from the Domo Appstore. Domo can be used for data lakes, warehouses, as well as ETL tools. It can also be put to use alongside R or Python scripts so that it becomes easier for users to prepare data for predictive modelling. It is possible to connect data across the enterprise. Users can also use machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities that come with Domo to enable them to explore all available data on their own.
Key Features:
- Pre-built cloud connectors: With Domo, users can connect to more than 1000 pre-built cloud connectors. This can be done on-premise using Domo Workbench, and it is also possible to upload files such as Excel or Google Docs, proprietary systems, as well as federated connectors. This enables users to query the data in the location it’s being hosted
- Magic ETL feature: Users can prepare their data using data transformation tools with a drag-and-drop Magic ETL, eliminating the need for learning SQL
- Automatically suggested visualizations: Conversion of raw data to charts, graphs, maps, and other visual content using Domo’s data visualization becomes easy. These options are automatically suggested by Domo as soon as the data source is uploaded. Users can easily refine the data as well as annotate for further commentary or begin future discussions. It is also possible to refine and control who has access to the said data
- AI engine: Domo has predictive analysis which is powered with Mr Roboto. Mr Roboto is Domo’s AI engine. The application enables data scientists to easily create predictive models using artificial intelligence as well as machine learning, and NLP, among other AI technologies available at hand to create alerts and notifications about the changes in KPIs
- Domo Appstore: Domo comes with its own open cloud platform or an app store. It is an ecosystem of pre-built applications as well as connector APIs and dashboards. This gives the users the chance to build their own application as well and then share it on the Domo Appstore
Some of the other popular and widely used software as Business Intelligence tools in companies of various industries include Microstrategy, whose main focus is on hyperintelligence and cloud solutions, GoodData, which provides tools for embedding analytics into websites and data ingestion and storage, IBM Cognos Analytics which uses AI heavily and also Qlikview and Yellowfin BI.